Swiss-Commemorative-Coin-1987-CHF-5-obverse

The Modulor is an anthropometric scale of proportions devised by the Swiss-born

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

architect An architect is a person who plans, designs and oversees the construction of buildings. To practice architecture means to provide services in connection with the design of buildings and the space within the site surrounding the buildings that h ...

Le Corbusier Charles-Édouard Jeanneret (6 October 188727 August 1965), known as Le Corbusier ( , , ), was a Swiss-French architect, designer, painter, urban planner, writer, and one of the pioneers of what is now regarded as modern architecture. He was ...

(1887–1965). It was developed as a visual bridge between two incompatible scales, the

Imperial Imperial is that which relates to an empire, emperor, or imperialism. Imperial or The Imperial may also refer to: Places United States * Imperial, California * Imperial, Missouri * Imperial, Nebraska * Imperial, Pennsylvania * Imperial, Texas ...

and the

metric Metric or metrical may refer to: * Metric system, an internationally adopted decimal system of measurement * An adjective indicating relation to measurement in general, or a noun describing a specific type of measurement Mathematics In mathe ...

systems. It is based on the height of a man with his arm raised. Modulor considered the standard human height as 1.75 m, excluding feminine measures. The dimensions were refined with overall height of raised arm set at 2.26 m. It was used as a system to set out a number of Le Corbusier's buildings and was later codified into two books.

History

Le Corbusier developed the Modulor in the long tradition of

Vitruvius Vitruvius (; c. 80–70 BC – after c. 15 BC) was a Roman architect and engineer during the 1st century BC, known for his multi-volume work entitled '' De architectura''. He originated the idea that all buildings should have three attribut ...

, Leonardo da Vinci's

Vitruvian Man The ''Vitruvian Man'' ( it, L'uomo vitruviano; ) is a drawing by the Italian Renaissance artist and scientist Leonardo da Vinci, dated to . Inspired by the writings by the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius, the drawing depicts a nude man in two s ...

, the work of

Leon Battista Alberti Leon Battista Alberti (; 14 February 1404 – 25 April 1472) was an Italian Renaissance humanist author, artist, architect, poet, priest, linguist, philosopher, and cryptographer; he epitomised the nature of those identified now as polymaths. H ...

, and other attempts to discover mathematical proportions in the human body and then to use that knowledge to improve both the appearance and function of

architecture Architecture is the art and technique of designing and building, as distinguished from the skills associated with construction. It is both the process and the product of sketching, conceiving, planning, designing, and constructing buildings ...

. The system is based on human measurements, the double unit, the Fibonacci numbers, and the

golden ratio In mathematics, two quantities are in the golden ratio if their ratio is the same as the ratio of their sum to the larger of the two quantities. Expressed algebraically, for quantities a and b with a > b > 0, where the Greek letter phi ( ...

. Le Corbusier described it as a "range of harmonious measurements to suit the human scale, universally applicable to architecture and to mechanical things". With the Modulor, Le Corbusier sought to introduce a scale of visual measures that would unite two virtually incompatible systems: the

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons were a cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo-Saxons happened wit ...

foot The foot ( : feet) is an anatomical structure found in many vertebrates. It is the terminal portion of a limb which bears weight and allows locomotion. In many animals with feet, the foot is a separate organ at the terminal part of the leg mad ...

and

inch Measuring tape with inches The inch (symbol: in or ″) is a unit of length in the British imperial and the United States customary systems of measurement. It is equal to yard or of a foot. Derived from the Roman uncia ("twelfth ...

and the international

metric system The metric system is a system of measurement that succeeded the decimalised system based on the metre that had been introduced in France in the 1790s. The historical development of these systems culminated in the definition of the Intern ...

. Whilst he was intrigued by ancient civilisations who used measuring systems linked to the human body: elbow (

cubit The cubit is an ancient unit of length based on the distance from the elbow to the tip of the middle finger. It was primarily associated with the Sumerians, Egyptians, and Israelites. The term ''cubit'' is found in the Bible regarding ...

), finger ( digit), thumb (inch) etc., he was troubled by the

metre The metre ( British spelling) or meter ( American spelling; see spelling differences) (from the French unit , from the Greek noun , "measure"), symbol m, is the primary unit of length in the International System of Units (SI), though its pre ...

as a measure that was a forty-millionth part of the meridian of the earth. In 1943, in response to the French National Organisation for Standardisation's (

AFNOR Association Française de Normalisation (AFNOR, English: French Standardization Association) is a Paris-based standards organization and a member body for France at the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). The AFNOR Group develo ...

) requirement for standardising all the objects involved in the construction process, Le Corbusier asked an apprentice to consider a scale based upon a man with his arm raised to 2.20 m in height. The result, in August 1943 was the first graphical representation of the derivation of the scale. This was refined after a visit to the Dean of the Faculty of Sciences in Sorbonne on 7 February 1945 which resulted in the inclusion of a golden section into the representation. Whilst initially the Modulor Man's height was based on a French man's height of it was changed to 1.83 m in 1946 because "in English detective novels, the good-looking men, such as policemen, are always six feet tall!". The dimensions were refined to give round numbers and the overall height of the raised arm was set at 2.262 m. Of the works leading to the creation of the Modulor, Robin Evans notes that the female body "was only belatedly considered and rejected as a source of proportional harmony".

Promotion

On 10 January 1946 during a visit to New York, Le Corbusier met with Henry J. Kaiser, an American industrialist whose Kaiser Shipyard had built

Liberty ship Liberty ships were a class of cargo ship built in the United States during World War II under the Emergency Shipbuilding Program. Though British in concept, the design was adopted by the United States for its simple, low-cost construction. Ma ...

s during World War II. Kaiser's project was to build ten thousand new houses a day, but he had changed his mind and decided to build cars instead. During the interview, Le Corbusier sympathised with Kaiser's problems of coordinating the adoption of equipment between the American and British armies because of the differences in units of length; and promoted his own ''harmonious scale''. On the same trip he met with

David E. Lilienthal David Eli Lilienthal (July 8, 1899 – January 15, 1981) was an American attorney and public administrator, best known for his Presidential Appointment to head Tennessee Valley Authority and later the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). He had p ...

of the

Tennessee Valley Authority The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) is a federally owned electric utility corporation in the United States. TVA's service area covers all of Tennessee, portions of Alabama, Mississippi, and Kentucky, and small areas of Georgia, North Carolin ...

to promote the use of his ''harmonious scale'' on further civil engineering projects. He also applied the principle of the Modulor to the efficient design of distribution crates in post war France.

Graphic representation

The graphic representation of the Modulor, a stylised human figure with one arm raised, stands next to two vertical measurements, a red series based on the figure's navel height (1.08 m in the original version, 1.13 m in the revised version) and segmented according to Phi and a blue series based on the figure's entire height, double the navel height (2.16 m in the original version, 2.26 m in the revised), segmented similarly. A

spiral In mathematics, a spiral is a curve which emanates from a point, moving farther away as it revolves around the point. Helices Two major definitions of "spiral" in the American Heritage Dictionary are:André Maissonier and Justino Serralta.Jorge Nudelman
"En recuerdo: Justino Serralta, 'arquitecto de comunidades', 1919–2011"
''Boletín Facultad de Arquitectura UDELAR'' (30 October 2011).

Practical application

Le Corbusier used his Modulor scale in the design of many

buildings A building, or edifice, is an enclosed structure with a roof and walls standing more or less permanently in one place, such as a house or factory (although there's also portable buildings). Buildings come in a variety of sizes, shapes, and func ...

, including:

Unité d'Habitation à Marseille

In his first book on the subject ''The Modulor'', Le Corbusier has a chapter on the use of the modular in the Unité d'Habitation. The modular governs: the plan, section and elevations; the brise-soleil; the roof; the supporting columns and the plan and section of the apartments. It was also used for the dimensions of the commemorative stone laid on 14 October 1947. A version of the Modulor Man was

cast Cast may refer to: Music * Cast (band), an English alternative rock band * Cast (Mexican band), a progressive Mexican rock band * The Cast, a Scottish musical duo: Mairi Campbell and Dave Francis * ''Cast'', a 2012 album by Trespassers William ...

concrete Concrete is a composite material composed of fine and coarse aggregate bonded together with a fluid cement (cement paste) that hardens (cures) over time. Concrete is the second-most-used substance in the world after water, and is the most wid ...

near the entrance.

Church of Sainte Marie de La Tourette

In the Church of

Sainte Marie de La Tourette Sainte Marie de La Tourette is a Dominican Order priory, located on a hillside near Lyon, France, designed by the architect Le Corbusier, the architect’s final building. The design of the building began in May 1953 and completed in 1961. The comm ...

Le Corbusier floors the majority of the church in pale concrete panels set to Modulor dimensions. Also, the engineer

Iannis Xenakis Giannis Klearchou Xenakis (also spelled for professional purposes as Yannis or Iannis Xenakis; el, Γιάννης "Ιωάννης" Κλέαρχου Ξενάκης, ; 29 May 1922 – 4 February 2001) was a Romanian-born Greek-French avant-garde c ...

applied the Modulor system to the design of the exterior vertical ventilators or "ondulatoires".

Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts

In the

Carpenter Center Carpentry is a skilled trade and a craft in which the primary work performed is the cutting, shaping and installation of building materials during the construction of buildings, ships, timber bridges, concrete formwork, etc. Carpenters t ...

the Modulor system was used for the brise-soleil distances, the floor to floor heights, the bay distances and the column thicknesses. Le Corbusier conceived that the dimensioning of the entrance ramp would be "''visible essay on the mathematics of the human body''". Modulor image in Berlin

Unite d'Habitation a Berlin.

In this image of the Modulor in Berlin, there are several messages: # The typical apartment is designed for four people. (Note 4 people in bed on the right). # The patterns of paint on the side of the balconies is explained by diagonal line. # Brie Soleil is sized by the height of the Modulor man. # The room height is calculated by the Modulor.

Publication

Le Corbusier published ''Le Modulor'' in 1948, followed by ''Modulor 2'' in 1955. These works were first published in English as ''The Modulor'' in 1954 and ''Modulor 2 (Let the User Speak Next)'' in 1958. The 2004 reprinted box set including both books was printed in a square format using the Modulor with the series twenty seven to one hundred and forty reduced in size to one tenth.

Commemorative usage

* A picture of the Modulor appears on the eighth banknote series on the 10 CHF Swiss banknote dedicated to Le Corbusier.

Citations

References

* * * * *

External links

{{Use dmy dates, date=January 2017 1948 non-fiction books French non-fiction books Architecture books Architectural design Architectural theory Le Corbusier Units of length Birkhäuser books 1943 introductions